Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

AMY TAN
mother, whose children had already been shot, who never looked
away as the mouth of the gun rose to her mouth. A young man who
could have jumped on a truck taking the others to safety, but instead
went back in the direction where his sweetheart had been captured
by the army. A grandfather who refused to leave his burning home. A
sister, only twelve years old, dragged by six soldiers into the hidden
parts of the forest, where she screamed, then stopped, screamed then
stopped, until the rifle shot came and she made no sounds forever­
more. She was brave. They all were brave. Those now listening would
try to be brave.
When it was close to dusk, the old grandmothers brought out the
red singing shawls they had repaired that morning. They had
threaded the iridescent mantles of one hundred emerald beetles onto
the long rope fringes, twenty carapaces on each string, knotted off
with a small brass bell at the end. Their granddaughters carried out
fifty-three blankets and placed them on the mats to air. The married
women brought forth the best of their now tattered clothes, so that
they might show their sisters the secret weave and knot they had
carefully guarded as their own. No need for secrets now. The grand­
mothers hung the singing shawls on the arms of trees, since the un­
married girls would not be there to wear them and mourn. Soon they
would put on these best clothes, and fifty-three people, young and
old, would each lie on top of a blanket and roll into a cocoon. They
would have already eaten the poison mushrooms the twins had
found. They would wriggle and writhe like moths bursting against
their sacks. The fringe of the blankets would brush their unfeeling
faces, a sign that sleep this time had no end. And when their breath
was the departing breeze, the emerald wings would flap and fly,
sounding the bells and singing to the dead, “Go home, go home.”
Loot stood and picked up a bowl of food made with the last of the
hoarded spices. The food was passed around the circle, with all tak­
ing a pinch, so they could give offerings. Loot cried out: To the Nats,
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